Add Power to Your PowerShell: Some of the Best PowerShell Blogs We’ve Found

PowerShell is indeed a powerful ally. Using its raw command-line power for automation and configuration management has given Windows devotees a fundamental level of precision control for years. PowerShell has been around long enough that there are some incredibly rich and detailed references in the blog world. Here are a few PowerShell blogs you should add to your favorites list.

The Official Microsoft PowerShell blog

This is the official word straight from the proverbial horse's mouth—the Microsoft PowerShell team blog. You can pretty much take what you read here and put it right to work without questioning its validity or accuracy.

In a recent post entitled, "A Comparison of Shell and Scripting Language Security," the team describes its current stance on security and the role PowerShell can play. The team writes, "As PowerShell has become more popular, it has also become more popular for unauthorized administrators—also known as 'Attackers.' In any operating system or platform, the power and efficiency you provide authorized administrators is also available to unauthorized administrators. For example, Unix, Linux, and Mac all have dozens of powerful built in compilers, scripting languages, and debuggers. It’s a power user's dream, but also a liability. The PowerShell team has recognized this double-edged sword since the introduction of PowerShell in 2006. In the last 10 years, we’ve invested greatly in both securing and hardening PowerShell. In PowerShell version 5, we really cranked up the dials on making PowerShell security transparent—the results of which we describe in our post, PowerShell ♥ the Blue Team."

By all means check out the security improvements to PowerShell listed in that referenced post. Other recent posts on the official Microsoft PowerShell team blog include everything from availability announcements to specific step-by-step how-to posts:

• Regular cadence for PowerShell Core Community Call
• DSC Resource Kit Release April 2017
• Using PowerShell Modules in Azure Functions

Hey Scripting Guy!

This is also a Microsoft blog, but is clearly focused more on the how-to angle. Recent posts on this well-done blog include Debugging PowerShell script in Visual Studio Code—Part 1 and Part 2. The posts are clear, well-organized and at a good technical level for enterprise admins.

There's also a four part series on a PSScriptAnalyzer deep dive. Part four leads off with: "PSScriptAnalyzer comes with a total of 45 rules that are based on community best practices. PowerShell team members at Microsoft and the community developed these rules. The built-in rules are a great baseline, and a good starting point that will quickly tell you if a script or module has any glaring flaws before you get too deep into it. That's great, but what if you or your team has some more stringent standards or you want to borrow the PSSA engine to check scripts for some other reason? You'll need a custom rule."

Other current posts include "Cloud operating system deployment: WinPE in Azure." There's also a series called PowerTips, which includes posts on:

• PowerTip: Get a list of security patches installed in the last 90 days
• PowerTip: Get a list of suspended Azure Automation jobs
• PowerTip: Convert from UTC to my local time zone

The Lonely Administrator

This is Jeffrey Hicks' PowerShell blog, in which he lists plenty of other training references and books on "the shell." A lot of books he references he has authored or co-authored himself, including the two titles he would consider essential. He also references to two Microsoft blogs mentioned above. On his blog, he writes, "If you want to get up to speed even faster, you can get a copy of my free eBook on PowerShell 4 for beginners that I wrote for Veeam. After that, get a copy of The Windows PowerShell Cookbook by Lee Holmes. This is a fantastic resource on all the things you can do with PowerShell."

Jeff further recommends, "You should keep up with the official Microsoft PowerShell team and Hey, Scripting Guy! blogs. It also wouldn’t hurt to bookmark the Microsoft Script Center."

For a veteran PowerShell guy (and veteran TechMentor presenter!) like Jeffrey Hicks, this is a good one to follow.

What are your favorite PowerShell blogs? Let me know at [email protected]. Stay tuned for more PowerShell blogs in future posts!

Posted by Lafe Low on April 20th, 2017 at 11:37 AM